quotations about experience
Present experience has, I am afraid, always found us "absent-minded": we cannot give our hearts to it--not even our ears! Rather, as one divinely preoccupied and immersed in himself into whose ear the bell has just boomed with all its strength the twelve beats of noon suddenly starts up and asks himself: "what really was that which just struck?" so we sometimes rub our ears afterward and as, utterly surprised and disconcerted, "what really was that which we have just experienced?"
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
preface, Genealogy of Morals
Where the age of experience has not produced this sort of clear maturity in the spirit, then it produces either despair or folly, or an exaggerated shirking of reality, which, being a falsehood, is wickeder than despair, and far more inhuman than mere foolishness.
HILAIRE BELLOC
On Something
We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience. To enveigh against things that are past and irremediable, is unpleasing; but to steer clear of the shelves and rocks we have struck upon, is the part of wisdom, equally as incumbent on political as other men, who have their own little bark, or that of others, to navigate through the intricate paths of life, or the trackless ocean, to the haven of security and rest.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Major-General Armstrong, Mar. 26, 1781
Experience is the only good 'tis safer to borrow than to buy.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
The field of experience is the whole universe in all directions. Theory remains shut up within the limits of human faculties.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
That's the way people go. They have a powerful experience and they use it to interpret, rightly or wrongly, what happens later in the rest of the world.
JAMES FENTON
Paris Review, fall 2012
Of all the things that make up a girl's life, I think it would be fair to categorize most of them into two groups: things done and things yet to do. And that is exactly how the years pass--waiting for certain milestones (like blue eye shadow) to come by so you can leap over them with joy and delight in your own maturity. Things like shopping--that is a given, since you've been doing it since you could walk. Slow-dancing with Greg Alcoke--that was a biggie, since it was preceded by such great anticipation. And so things go until you wake up one day and realize that the only thing left for you to experience is walking toward a bright light.
GWEN MACSAI
Lipshtick
Experience is the only prophesy of wise men.
ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE
speech at Mâcon, 1847
Experience is a truer guide than the words of others.
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Thoughts on Art and Life
God sends experience to paint men's portraits.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Experience is another word for mistakes.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's
To wish that others should learn by our experience, is sometimes as idle as to think that we can eat and they be filled; but when we find that we have eaten poison, it is doubtless mercy to warn others against the dish.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
The Professor at the Breakfast Table
Every man's experience of today is that he was a fool yesterday and the day before yesterday; tomorrow he will most likely be of exactly the same opinion.
CHARLES MACKAY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Her hopes ne'er drew
Aught from experience, that chill touchstone, whose
Sad proof reduces all things from their hues.
LORD BYRON
The Island
Experience is the most eloquent of preachers, but she never has a large congregation.
BERZ
attributed, Day's Collacon
A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get.
L. FRANK BAUM
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Whoso is content with pure experience and acts upon it has enough of truth.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
Experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
The Collected Essays
Experience is a comb
And love
(Love)
Love's a dog from hell
AKA BROWN
"Experience Is a Comb", Dogs From Hell